McCain as Luke Skywalker, again? Out of the media’s Death Star

I’ve come to the recent realization that John McCain’s campaign is just like Luke Skywalker getting out of the Death Star – the media is firing at them from every direction, they’re coming in from everywhere.

It confirms my worst suspicions about the collective intellect of those who cover politics for the major news outlets. I’ve never seen such a band a happy dupes, at least not since the Reverend Jim Jones had nearly 1,000 of his followers drink of the magic Flavor Aid in Guyana, 1978. (NOTE: The linked story is from NPR, dealing with the: “Portrait of a Disturbed Cult Leader.” You can draw whatever parallels you want. I will not.)

In 2000, it was the campaign of Governor Bush which was patrolling that Death Star, according to McCain’s narrative; eight years later, it is the nation’s political media according to those Americans surveyed. (With theater critics playing political scribes these days, just about everyone in the press is in on Axelrod’s scriptingl.)

There will be plenty to say on the media.

I’m more enthused by what John McCain said at the Livestrong Summit Thursday evening with Lance Armstrong in Columbus, Ohio. It was an event for health care, and most notably the treatment of and finding a cure for cancer. Barack Obama refuses to be seen at such events.

Ann Marie Jones, a stay-at-home mom whose young son was diagnosed with leukemia in September… said she had been leaning toward Obama “until he didn’t show up tonight.”

She added: “I feel like I understand what he’s doing over there, but I think he needed to be here tonight for this.”

Jones said she has become bothered by the length and scale of Obama’s travels.

“I think we have a lot of things going on with our children — many different things going on here in the United States that need our attention,” prime among them healthcare, she said.

John McCain talked about treatment of and a cure for cancer while Barack sipped his self-celebratory martini cocktail in Berlin. From the Arizona Senator’s opening remarks [text]:

Sometimes in our political debates, America’s health-care system is criticized as if it were just one more thing to argue about. And the oncologists and cancer researchers with us today might grow a little discouraged at times listening to campaigns debate health care. But I trust you will never lose sight of the fact that you are each involved in one of the great vocations, doing some of the greatest work there is to be done in this world. Some of the cancer patients you meet are in the worst hours of their lives, filled with fear and heartache. And the confident presence of a doctor, or the knowledge that researchers like you are on the case, can be all they have to hold onto. That is a gift only you can give, and you deserve our country’s gratitude. I thank you for all for your contributions to the work of the Lance Armstrong Foundation, and I wish you success in the even greater work that lies ahead.

McCain did not speak much of his bout with melanoma. For me, it was squamous cell carcinoma: state 4 BOT cancer.

I didn’t and don’t debate health care with my oncologists. It was a case of: this is what we’re going to do, and the goal is a cure. At that point, I didn’t leave myself a choice, as I didn’t really have one, so that’s what we did. And it was a success to the point that now, eight months after treatment, I’ve no cancer anywhere. I pray it stays this way, but I never know. There is not much in this world like waiting for test results when you know what the outcome might mean. (No, I’m not thinking ahead to election night. This is a different level that all that.)

And this is more important that putting on a stage show in a foreign land.

This brings to my mind how little Barack Obama means to me. Granted, on the meta-scale, as the first African-American Presidential candidate, he will always have tremendous import to me, but as a political individual, he is about as meaningless as JF Kerry. Hillary means more, Mike Dukakis meant more, as did Fritz, Mo Udall, and Birch Bayh. A politician who sells a prefabricated image works for the fawning, leftward leaning media, and Barry will be President if they can make the sale, but the goods are flawed. Barack Obama has no business running for the Presidency at this point in his career. (Yes, he could evolve into someone more substantive, but he has shown no signs of such a capability.)

Does any know of what Barack Obama speaks? I’m not asking about transcendent messages or evanescent nuances, as that is not what our nation has ever needed in a President or needs at this important time in our history. Please, none of the generational-transitional, meaningful-kabob nonsense.

Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans – a generation built not on chronology but on wisdom. If John McCain wins this election, the rock which covered our nation’s political media will have been kicked over. We’ll have torn down a very important wall, Barry.